Don't Want To Be Alone
by NetherVoidWanderer
Summary: Loneliness is rarely a pretty thing. He'd never really had anybody and she'd been abandoned. She never wanted to be alone ever again and neither did he. Sakura x Gaara
1. Together

All the stereotypes; Blondes are stupid, black haired girls are bithcy, red head's are butchy, and brunettes are homely.

But what was the stereotype for pink haired women?

Who knew?

Who cared?

She was with him, had chosen him despite what he was. Despite what she'd seen him do countless times on the battlefield and despite what he'd done to her.

Sometimes he'd be mean to her. He'd be cruel and heartless and cynical until she cried. He only did it so that he could hold her against his chest, so that he could lick and kiss the salty buds of water away and feel her cling to him needily.

Sometimes he'd scare her. Not jump out and yell 'boo' type of scare but stalk up silently behind her and clamp his hand on her shoulder so that she startled slightly or do things she dubbed 'creepy' simply so she would cling to him… as if he could make all the fear and all the pain go away.

He liked it when she came to him for comfort. He liked it when she cried silently and kissed him or when she muffled her sobs against his shoulder.

He especially liked it when he came back after a few days; never telling her where he went or what he did, and she would greet him with physical contact and soft words as she caressed him as if to make sure she was real.

But he most definitely liked it when he lay in bed with his back propped up against the wall after their sex and she would have her arms wrapped around him and her head resting in the curve of his shoulder as she slept. She cooed in her sleep and mumbled things. Soft things. Things that made him content.

"Gaara…" She said as she exhaled. "don't leave me…" She often had nightmares about her two team mates. The one who had gone off searching power and the second who had gone off seeking the other one even though it had been years since he was last seen. "…I don't want to be alone…" He closed his eyes and tilted his head down slightly so that his nose was buried in fragrant pink hair. "…I love you…" The words were a mere whisper out of her lips.

Sometimes… mostly at times like this… he would feel the tiniest pangs of remorse and guilt for being so cruel to her and for leaving several days on end without saying anything to her. But these flashes of alien emotion were very short and easily ignored.

This was something very new to him after all… these emotions, those words, the way she looked at him and caressed him and always wanted to touch him in some way. Sometimes he just wanted to squeeze her neck until those pretty green eyes spattered against the wall, other times he would float faint touches and kisses over her skin as if in fear that handling her roughly would break her.

But at times like this… her head on his chest, her arms wrapped loosely around him, her scent so close her touch so nice and warm… he really wanted to tell her.

She was so afraid of him leaving her that she failed to see so blatantly, so obviously, that he was scared.

Scared of her leaving him.

Scared that it would be someone else she spoke of in her sleep.

Scared that she wouldn't want to touch him or look at him anymore.

"…don't leave me Gaara…" The woman begged in her sleep, her arms tightening around him slightly.

What he really wanted to tell her, what he really wanted to say was 'don't leave _me_ Sakura' but that was a rather impossible thing for him to say… so he contented himself with burrowing his nose deeper into her hair and holding her tightly, possessively, against his body.


	2. Rough Love

Admittedly she liked it when he was mean to her and when he was 'creepy'. Mostly because he'd apologize to her wordlessly, and because even though he was cruel to her, he was never heartless. And even though she rarely awoke to find him next to her, he would always be there when she fell asleep. When he was mean and cruel it reminded her that he, that she, that they, were still human. And when he was 'creepy' it reminded her that Gaara was still Gaara; that he was in very many ways still the twelve year old who had tried to kill her, and in many ways he was the adult she'd (somehow) fallen in love with.

Sakura knew that sometimes he wished to rip her heart out through her throat. She knew this because she could see it in his eyes every once in awhile and occasionally during their fights; he'd grab her by the shoulders and slam her against the wall, or he'd punch holes in the wall uncomfortably close to her head. She didn't flinch anymore, that was one of the good things.

The vain part of her mind, Inner Sakura, didn't like it when his fingernails left half moon crescents on her hips, or the red outlines of his mouth on her chest and shoulders that were hard to explain and even harder to cover up.

The masochistic part of Sakura loved the bloody little gouges his rough nails left in her body. The red spots _were_ hard to cover up but she had loved it the first time Ino had noticed; Sakura had seen the jealously so loosely hidden on the blonde's face and how her sentences became short and snappy after Sakura's explanation. (Things were dicey with her and Shikamaru) But mostly she loved the two little bite marks on the junction of her neck and shoulder that he never let fully heal.

The two marks resembled a heart, and they were always pink or red and slightly bloody.

She liked it because that was his own special, kinda psychotic, but very affectionate way of saying 'I love you'. Or at least that's what she liked to think. Considering who Gaara was and what he was, the scar was probably more of a brand mark, more of his way of saying 'This is mine'.

It was over the two marks that Inner and Outer Sakura had the biggest fights over.

She knew that Gaara had recognized that she had something going on in her head that wasn't _quite_ right. But he never called it into the foreground probably because it didn't last long enough; it was most often brief flickers.

Once it had been very bad, she had snapped. Once she had screamed, and cried, threw the mattress out the window, shattered dishes, and coated his protective wall of sand with shurikens, kunai, needles, and swords of varying sizes, makabishi, a chair, and various other pointed objects. He probably didn't remember that though… well the outburst he probably remembered but not the reason behind it. Or if he did then he didn't dwell on it, probably because she never mentioned it, probably because it wasn't a daily issue, and probably because she wasn't completely focused on her own gains.

Oh Sakura _did_ hold grudges and she held them well. But she _hid_ them well also. She left the grudges and the anger with Inner Sakura. That was how she coped with the abandonment issues, the inferiority, the jealousy, and the hate. It took some time but Inner Sakura had finally gotten fed up, had said 'fuck this shit' and she had let go. (Others would've called it 'exploded' but whatever.) She had vented on the nearest living thing which just happened to be Gaara.

Speaking of the sand nin… he'd been gone for a total of twenty eight days and Sakura was about ready to severely injure somebody. She'd been abandoned before… Sasuke… and Naruto she hadn't seen for a few years, Kakashi had been gone for thirteen months now, Tsunade was always busy and couldn't even spare her a glance, her mother had died, hell she hadn't even seen Ino for two weeks …

Absently she tried to focus on her paper work, which was a very difficult thing to do; her mind kept going back to Gaara having just up and left, never mentioned where he was going or what he was doing or how long he would be gone for. It was irritating and very nerve racking. If it had been anyone else, any other guy, she would swear up and down that he was cheating on her. But… it was Gaara…

She threw her pen down in frustration and rubbed her eyes with her palms. It was aggravating. Very, aggravating. Okay so he was still a ninja of Suna, she could understand that… but… she really did miss him and he usually wasn't gone this long. Even if it was only a month.

"Jeeeez… when did I become so frickin clingy?" Inner Sakura was kind enough to bring up one of her many memories of her genin days; chasing Sasuke. "Okay… so I've always been clinging to a guy…" She admitted to the silence of the night. "God I need a hobby…"

Sakura stood slowly, her knees popping as she walked through the kitchen. The microwave blared angry green numbers at her as she stumbled towards the light switch.

"Two thirty five a.m…" She winced as the light kicked on adding to the feeble glow of her desk lamp. One thing dominated her mind and five minutes of cabinet hunting produced half a bag of spaghetti and an unopened jar of sauce.

Maybe it was her eagerness for company, maybe there was something about two forty five in the morning that made her massively paranoid, or perhaps it was that fact that she _knew_ she'd heard something… but Sakura found herself scanning the kitchen/ dining/ living room with a pounding heart and slowly going for a kunai.

Sakura whipped around bringing the kunai down at an angle that would've taken out the trespasser's eye but it hit sand. Immediately her lower back was pressed against the counter with hands on either side of her waist. Both sand and kunai fell to the floor as her collar was nudged aside and the freshly exposed skin nipped.

"Sakuraaaa…" He sounded inebriated but that wasn't what made her heart leap into her throat and her body freeze. It was the tone, the mix of two voices she knew very well. There was a growl against her throat and he pulled his entire body back to look at her. Though there was now space between them; the hands still planted near her hips were still very much blocking any escape. "You're still afraid." It was a throaty growl, a dangerous growl, and a defensive growl.

_Oh…shit…_

"Startled." Sakura corrected relaxing every muscle in her body. She muted out Inner Sakura's hysterics and did what she had to in order to curb his rising anger. Her eyes never left his as she pushed her body fully against him. "It's been a long time…" She began as she threaded her fingers through his hair. "Since you came home…" Sakura didn't flinch when she felt what she knew to be blood stick to her hand. Instead she opted for closeness and angled her head so that her throat was near his mouth and her lips were next to his ears. "…smelling like blood." Due to their proximity she felt the hitch in his breathing. Almost perfect. One more little assurance and he'd be there when she woke up. Definitely not in bed, maybe in the apartment, but most likely meandering around the city. She leaned back so he could watch as she removed one hand from his hair and licked some of the blood off. Once again she felt his breath hitch only this time it was followed by him pushing his lips against hers and removing traces of the blood with his tongue. She smiled against his mouth and wrapped her arms around him. In all that he had been and in all that he was, Gaara was surprisingly easy to predict; half the time anyway.

-

Sakura awoke four hours later squinting as a sun beam ran flush against her eye, rubbed the crusty stuff out of said eye and was mildly disappointed to be alone in bed. Sighing she heaved her body away from the cocoon of blankets which was made all the more difficult by her legs being twisted in the top sheet. Her success at not face planting into the floor because of the bed sheet was completely undermined by the pair of pants she tripped on. Her glaring at the pants ended when she realized that they weren't hers which meant one of two things: Gaara was running around Konoha in his skivvies… again. (That's a different story.) Or he was still in the apartment. Hearing a splash in the general direction of her bathroom both Inner and Outer Sakura's made noises of glee as images of him nude and wet paraded through her mind. Pushing the rampaging nudie pictures out of her mind she stood and tried to compose herself. She crossed the room, forcing herself to walk at a normal speed but froze and did a double take as she passed her wardrobe mirror.

She blinked several times. It was not the fresh wound on her shoulder, nor the red spots on her chest; it was in fact the dried blood smeared on her forehead. Despite some of the lines having crusted off the original design was unmistakable.

Ai.


End file.
